Clarence Darrow's Letters
INTRODUCTION In 1928, H. L. Mencken published an essay in the American Mercury in which he asked, “How many American lawyers are remembered, as lawyers?”1 Thinking only of dead lawyers, Mencken offered three nominees: John Marshall, Daniel Webster, and Joseph Choate. In 1928, these three might have been the only suitable candidates. But anyone answering the same question today would have to include Clarence Darrow on the list (and remove Choate). Darrow, who died in 1938, is the most celebrated lawyer in American history, and he will likely remain so for a long time. The number of books and other writings about Darrow or about the cases in which he was involved is considerable, and steadily increasing. Many adult and juvenile biog- raphies have been written about him; the adult biographies began appearing several years before he died. Dissertations and other academic studies have also been written about him, his cases, and his writings. Most of Darrow’s own books and many of his speeches and other writings have been reprinted several times, and many are anthologized or otherwise in print today—more than seventy years after his death. Many fi ctional char- acters and plots have been based on Darrow or his cases, and Darrow has often been portrayed onstage and on television and in movies (which have played no small part in making him such a celebrated lawyer)—by Spencer Tracy, Orson Welles, Henry Fonda, Jack Lemmon, Christopher Plummer, and Kevin Spacey, among others. 1. H. L. Mencken, “Stewards of Nonsense,” American Mercury, January 1928, 35–37 (reprinted in H.
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